DavisvsdeviseWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Davis is a name, devise is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Davis” is a name and “devise” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,491
“Davis” frequency rank
#7,050
“devise” frequency rank
13541
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Davis devise
Definition Nom de famille anglophone. Figure accompagnée d’une phrase exprimant d’une manière allégorique et brève quelque pensée, quelque sentiment.

Letter map: Davis vs devise

Shared letters muted; letters that set Davis and devise apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
Davis
6 ch
devise

Part-of-speech tell for Davis / devise

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Davis is aname and deviseanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13541, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Davis is recorded at frequency rank #6,491, classified as aname. devise is at rank #7,050, tagged as anoun, pronounced \də.viz\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 13541, this pair ranks #400,574 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Davis vs devise

Shared letters: disv. Private to "Davis": a. Private to "devise": e.

"Davis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "devise" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Davisadvis · daivs · daviss · davsi · davvis · ddavis · dvais
  • deviseddevise · deivse · devies · devisse · devsie · devvise · dveise · edvise

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Davis" for "devise" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Davis" is a name and "devise" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Davis" or "devise"?
"Davis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,491 in our French list, against #7,050 for "devise". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "Davis" and "devise". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Davis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "devise" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #400,574 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Davis" and "devise" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "devins vs devise". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #400,574 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list